Eight students earned their way to the UIL State Academic Meet April 21-22 at the University of Texas at Austin after placing at or near the top of their competitions in the 5A-Region II meet at Prosper High School Friday and Saturday.

“It went very well,” campus UIL coordinator Jeff Schrantz said. “We got 7th place overall in sweepstakes, and we are sending eight students to the state meet in Austin. One in Lincoln-Douglas debate, and we are also sending our computer science team and our science team.”

Senior Bill Wang is one of the eight going to state with his first place finish in science securing his second straight trip to Austin for UIL academics.

“It feels really good,” senior Bill Wang said. “Basically what I do is a bunch of practice tests, each one has like 60 questions, 20 of each subject. What they cover is biology, chemistry, and physics, but what was in those categories is kind of varied, so in my experience the best way to prepare is just practice tests, and then you find what you’re bad at and get better at it.”

UIL academic season begins in January with the start of invitational meets, followed by the District 13-5A meet in March, with each meet seeing an increase in competition.

“I think when you advance to Region and to State it can be a little bit humbling because you can see the level of competition outside our district,” Schrantz said. “With that said, I was very pleased with how we did, and we took a mostly young team to state so I hope that this motivates people to keep working on their events and we see even more improvement next year.”

(Bold means State Qualifier)